Retcon Punch is on Summer Hours, which means we’re going to be writing fewer in-depth pieces for the month of August. But we’re addicts at this point, so we need a place for our thoughts on all those comics we can’t stop reading. Today, we’re discussing Secret Wars 5, A-Force 3, Ghost Racers 3, Inhumans Attilan Rising 4, Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos 3, Planet Hulk 4, Secret Wars Battleworld 4, Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde 2, and Years of Future Past 4.
Retcon Punch is on Summer Hours, which means we’re going to be writing fewer in-depth pieces for the month of August. But we’re addicts at this point, so we need a place for our thoughts on all those comics we can’t stop reading. Today, we’re discussing Ms. Marvel 17, Amazing Spider-Man Renew Your Vows 3, Civil War 2, Infinity Gauntlet 3, Giant Sized Little Marvel AvX 3, and Red Skull 2
Today, Michael and Patrick are discussing Darth Vader, originally released August 5th, 2015.
Michael: At my old age of 27, I must admit that I have gotten a little curmudgeonly – especially where pop culture is concerned. I’ve seen so many different iterations of ideas and tropes that sometimes it’s hard to tell if something is cliché or if I’ve just put myself in a position to see the same story 10 billion times. Darth Vader 8 took all of my predictions and suppositions and knocked them flat on their ass. And this pleases me. Continue reading
Today, Patrick, Drew, and Spencer discuss Thors 2, M.O.D.O.K. Assassin 3, Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars 3, and Black Widow 20.
Patrick: It’s kind of a goofy week for Secret Wars: between Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars — which may have just delivered its own punchline — and M.O.D.O.K. Assassin — which is nothing but punchlines — and the deadpan homage to cop shows that is Thors, there’s a lot to make us smile. It’s not all shits and giggles: perhaps it’s fitting that series stuck telling stories of heroes’ Last Days would skew so dark, and issues like Black Widow 20 provide a necessary tonal balance when looking at the week in aggregate.
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Today, Patrick and (guest writer) Elliott are discussing Star Wars 7, originally released July 29th, 2015.
Patrick: Comic books are the go-to medium for fleshing out stories and characters set up in movies, TV shows and video games. There’s always going to be a Firefly comic or something featuring Lara Croft – and 90% of the time, those series are filling in gaps in the narratives. And those gaps — those times before or after or during the main stories are usually filled with precisely that: more narrative. That’s not fair to comic books as a medium, which move in their own rhythms and will always be compared to the storytelling prowess of the original. We’ve had a ton of conversations on this site about what we even want from these things: Star Wars isn’t just a set of aliens and some colloquialisms about the Kessel Run, it’s the music, the motion, the sound effects, the light, the performances. Star Wars 7 is an interesting issue; it fills in gaps in the narrative we’re already reading, which in and of itself is filling in gaps in a different narrative altogether. But rather than letting the necessarily weak plot drive the issue, writer Jason Aaron imagines what Obi-Wan Kenobi must have felt during his years on Tatooine, and builds a story out from there. Continue reading
Today, Spencer and Patrick are discussing Guardians Team-Up 8, originally released July 29th, 2015.
Spencer: The best writers know when to step aside and let their artist tell as much of the story as possible — “a picture’s worth a thousand words,” right? Of course, to do this, a writer must have trust in their artist to properly convey their story, and in the chaotic world of mainstream superhero comics, where there are sometimes fill-in artists or multiple artists on a single title, that kind of trust can often be a rare commodity. In light of that point, Guardians Team-Up 8 is even more impressive — Ray Fawkes and Bengal tell their one-off story without any words (until the last page), putting Bengal in charge of all the issue’s storytelling. While this issue isn’t without its faults, I’d call it a largely successful gambit. Continue reading
Today, Patrick and Taylor are discussing Uncanny X-Men 35, originally released July 22nd, 2015.
Patrick: Mutants are among the more malleable allegories in comics. As a class of people persecuted for something they can’t control, they’ve acted as stand ins for racial minorities, religious minorities, disabled peoples, homosexuals – anyone with any kind of outsider status. But they’re also useful for other political debate: gun control, freedom vs. safety, etc. In one of his final issues writing the X-Men, Brian Michael Bendis employs a rarely-tapped metaphor and uses one of his own Mutants to tackle a topic that is decidedly apolitical, and casts an unlikely X-Man as the furthest thing from “outsider” you could imagine. It’s a delightfully simple slugline: what if Goldballs became famous? Continue reading
Today, Patrick, Drew, Mark and Michael discuss Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde 1, Weirdworld 2, Old Man Logan 3, E is for Extinction 2, Loki, Agent of Asgard 16 and Marvel Zombies 2.
Patrick: We can argue about the merits of “Battleworld” as an engine for compelling narratives until we are blue in the collective face. (I assume we keep that face on Reddit, and its has seen some shit.) This week’s crop demonstrates that, no matter what stories are coming out of Marvel these days, the pages themselves are looking absolutely gorgeous. Andrea Sorrentino, Ramon Villalobos, Michael del Mundo, Kev Walker and Lee Garbett all in one week? Plus, relative new-comer Alti Firmansyah rounds out a beautiful line-up. Maybe there’s something about the freedom that Secret Wars offers that attracts this kind of amazing talent.
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Today, Drew and Taylor are discussing Guardians of Knowhere 1, originally released July 15th, 2015.
Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy regains girl.
Traditional
Drew: I’ve never seen any codified theories to this effect, but I strongly believe that every narrative has an ideal length. The Old Man and the Sea couldn’t be longer without losing its essence, just as War and Peace couldn’t be shorter. I can’t claim to understand all of the factors that determine the ideal length for a story, but it’s obvious enough when the length isn’t ideal. The epigraph may functionally describe a lot of stories we’re familiar with, but it’s too short to be a satisfying story — we have no empathetic connection to “boy,” no investment in his relationship to “girl,” no context for their eventual reunion. Conversely, Brian Michael Bendis is often criticized for making his stories too long to be satisfying, with each plot point dragged out for too many issues for us to be invested in the bigger picture. Of course, one of the big mitigating factors in the world of comics is the quality of the art — a dazzling action sequence may not require much of a plot, and indeed may be better off without many distractions. Nobody does “dazzling” better than Mike Deodato Jr., which makes him an ideal pairing for Bendis’ decompressed style. So does Guardians of Knowhere 1 live up to that “match made in heaven” expectation? Continue reading
Today, Taylor and Spencer are discussing Ant-Man Annual 1, originally released July 15, 2015.
Taylor: Mentorship is an ancient practice. Any of us who have had the pleasure of reading Plato’s Republic (or were assigned to read it for class) know that the practice of an elder teaching a younger the ropes is something present in almost all societies. It’s natural then that we see this same master-apprentice relationship present in comic books. Batman, the Ninja Turtles, Wolverine, Jean Grey – they’ve all had someone there to mentor them and help them become heroes who save the day. We generally like to think of those mentors knowing it all, often forgetting that they are still human and far from perfect. Ant-Man Annual 1 examines what it’s like to find this out in typical witty fashion.
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